Although broadcasters have sophisticated systems for inserting national commercials into a program stream, including integrated traffic and billing systems, there are numerous obstacles to implementing a system to insert local commercials at small markets into a national program feed distributed by satellite. Until now, such local spot insertion advertising was the responsibility of the local broadcaster or cable operator.
Inserting local advertising poses several non-trivial technical, logistical and business challenges. First, literally hundreds of widely distributed local operators (or affiliates) would need to receive the commercials. Ad agencies would then have to ship analog tapes to hundreds of organizations, with different traffic and billing systems. The analog tapes would need to be tested for quality assurance, tracked, and stored until needed. The tapes would then have to be distributed to video tape recorders and readied for computer controlled playout (analog) at the proper time, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Such infrastructure generally exists at well-funded affiliates in major markets but is nonexistent and prohibitively expensive for smaller operators or affiliates in small markets.
Managing such tapes with ads for local commercials and inserting them properly into the program feed is a complex undertaking not well-suited for the smaller operators, especially for channels with smaller audiences in smaller markets. A quality broadcast involves more than excellent program material; it must also provide seamless insertion of national and local advertisements, promotions, and station identifications.
Equally important is the ability to maintain the integrity of the national television programming. Centralized control of the channel's programming (playout) is required to prevent local affiliates from tampering with the programming. In addition, it is important that there be synchronization between a plurality of remote sites and the centralized control to ensure that information is provided to each of the remote sites in a timely and efficient manner.
Typically each remote site will have their own file system, they will deposit their web content onto the central site server under their file system. The requirement is to deliver only the new or updated files to the remote sites and maintain the same directory structure. The remote site and central site file system must be in synch. If a remote site is down or unoperational for a number of days, central site must resend the latest copy (there could be multiple updates to the same file while the remote site is down) of the file(s) again once the remote site comes alive. In other words, a central site must know what's missing on the remote sites and be intelligent enough to send the missing or out-dated files.
Accordingly, a need exists for an efficient system for optimized distribution of digital media data to remote sites in a multimedia broadcast system from the central site. The present invention addresses such a need.